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Quins hang on in Salford

Harlequins held off a spirited late fightback from Sale to pick up a 25-23 win on Saturday that puts them one point behind the seventh-placed Sharks.

Quins seemingly ran away with the game in the first-half, scoring four tries courtesy of Charlie Walker, Chris Robshaw, Marland Yarde and Danny Care.

Sale's only response was two penalties for Danny Cipriani, meaning they were trailing 22-6 at half time.

Harlequins only had to score a penalty courtesy of Nick Evans in the second-half to win the game despite a comeback by the home side.

Sale scored three tries in the second-half, two for Tom Arscott and the other from Mark Cueto but in the end, missed conversions cost them dear.

Walker opened the scoring for Harlequins after only four minutes when the ball was charged down and he out-ran Sale's players to get to the ball first and ground it over the line.

Cipriani replied with his first penalty but just minutes later, Quins were in again. Another charge down this time passed through a couple of hands before finding Robshaw who finished it off with the try.

Yarde was on the end of a series of quick hands and some poor tackling by Sale meant he simply side stepped the defenders and smashed over the line to score.

Cipriani kicked another penalty but by this time his Sale side had some serious catching up to do.

A minute from half time, Care crashed over in the corner to add the bonus-point try for Harlequins and see his team go into the half-time break in good spirits.

Evans kicked a penalty three minutes into the second-half to further extend the Harlequins lead.

The visitors had Ollie Lindsay-Hague sent to the sin-bin on 49 minutes and Sale took full advantage of the extra man. Arscott saw his opportunity, seeing the gap he shot straight through it and over the line to put his side back in the game.

The Sale replacement scored again after coming off the bench on 73 minutes, once again spotting the gap and sailing straight through, diving over the line to score.

Minutes later, Cueto found himself on the end of some serious attacking pressure by Sale and caught the pass on a great angle, shrugging off the Harlequins defence to score.

Joe Ford missed the conversion and with just two points now separating the teams, the final five minutes were incredibly tense as Sale threw everything they could at the visitors.

Harlequins held on and Sale had simply left themselves too much to do from the first-half as they fell to a home defeat.